It is strange being a Stay-at-home-Dad. For instance a chant of "ihopeiwinatoaster, ihopeiwinatoaster" floating up the basement steps. My nearly seven [eight] (now nine) ((now ten)) [[eleven]] {twelve} year-old twin boys concoct, devise, arrange, invent, write, say, imagine and dream the damndest things. Things that make me wonder. Ideas and stories that I may think on for days after I encounter them. I'll share some here. They made me do this.
Essential. Childhood. Nonsense. Explained.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Belated Obligatory Post

I was going to write a long and lovely description of our Mothers Day Weekend. But now it is Friday and I can't remember what we did. You know, a baseball game that was emotional, a music concert that had been long and excitedly anticipated. A trip there, a school project due tomorrow, a friend over, showers and meals and books taken and served and read, a walk here a hug there. All this kinda happened between then and, well, now. Just stuff, but, well newer stuff, stuff that now has the precedent over yesterday's stuff...

Wait.

Well, I'll be damned, this is helpful. On Mondays in both boys Language Arts part of the day, the boys write a journal style couple of paragraphs to get things started, I guess. Here's Zack's which somehow made it home although I suspect it is supposed to be in a binder:

"Over the weekend I did some fun things! On Saturday I had a baseball game, we had to not didn't have time to play extra innings so we tied 13 to 13."

This is all true. He didn't mention he pitched again and Nick was his catcher. He didn't say anything about the funny pride we all - the boys, Marci and I, his teammates, parents watching, coaches - feel when twins make up the battery. He doesn't say how many hits he got or talk about the catch he didn't make. He doesn't have to, in his mind "I had a baseball game" covers all that. It's like a shortcut.

"Then we got home and I helped nick and Dad make one of my favorite meals, Stack Casiddias. The chicken on it was perfect."

(Hell, I can't even spellquesadillas, and they're stack(ed), Stacked Quesadillas, oh, well, his name's better really.) It's funny he mentions the chicken. He and Nick spiced up the breasts we used and helped cook them on the grill. They were perfect. Perfect because they helped and worked together and all that. But, yeah, perfectly spiced and executed. That's just good coaching. Here they are stacking them up:

And these are they straight out of the oven:

They really are a beany, corny, cheesy, chickeny pile of gooey goodness.

Then we watched first game of the Reds double-header. And that was fun. The next day we made breakfast in bed <for mom>...

... watched the Red's game, and my grandma came <over> for sliders. Then we went outside and threw the baseball after the reds lost the baseball game. All in all it was a pretty good weekend.By: Zack P. #17

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. Was it forgettable? Well, yes it was a little for me, I guess I should feel bad about that, but, well... I don't. I'd guess though, it was unforgettable to them.

Sometimes I wonder how that works. Which memories will collect where and in whom and when? I suppose I could try to figure all those details, work out an algorithm of sorts, a hierarchy of needed memories, maybe that'd make childhood a better experience for the boys or help me make better sense of my own. But, we can't do that, in my opinion. We can't save just exactly the right thing, we can't do exactly the right activity, or take a photo of the perfect moment. At least I can't. I'm just trying to keep up and work with what I've got and am giving.

I wonder if that makes any sense?

From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat..."

Thank Zack for the relative brevity of today's post. Sometimes I go on and on about this life because I want to try to explain it. Perhaps, even, I want to try and justify it. We don't go crazy with gifts and brunches and flowers and such on days like Mothers Day. Of course to many that means we aren't doing it right. Judging our weekend to the bar set up by social media over the past weeks, I'd say it looks like we didn't even try.